Today I wanted to do a small post to thank my daughter Lilia. She is 3 and half years old and very intelligent. Last Friday, I went to a store pharmacy and had her and my son, a year old, in the cart. She had my cell phone. As I'm about to sign off on the vitamins I had to pick up, I fainted. I couldn't move or open my eyes but I could still hear and I heard my son crying and my daughter was doing her best to comfort him. From what I was told, my daughter gave my phone to the pharmacist and told her to call my dad. My father got there right before paramedics took me to the hospital. I was in the hospital for 5 days total. What was wrong? Well, it wasn't just then normal fainting. Apparently, when I stand, my blood pressure decreases to the low 50s while my heart rate shoots up. I had to do so many tests, blood work, and ultimately I was put on 2 medications. When I went to pick them up, the pharmacy remembered me, how could they forget right? They told me how amazing my daughter was having them call my dad and taking care of her baby brother. I do know the last thing I heard was her cry and they said she started to cry when she saw my dad. While I was in the hospital, my parents took care of my kids and they told me how incredible Lilia was helping them take care of Aiden because she knew I was sick and wanted me to get better quickly. I adore her! I have been planning something huge for her to thank her for being such a smart a strong girl for me. I found this little tutu boutique near our town and they are doing a modeling photo shoot and my daughter loves to be in front of the camera, she loves dressing up, yet she is also a tom boy. I am so excited to take her in tomorrow to take a look around the shop. I can't wait to see her reaction! I am also taking her to get her nails done with me...spiderman manicure! I love my baby girl so much and I seriously am so blessed to have her in my life. See More

It has been quite some time that I have been away from here. I was going through too much and now I feel very sorted at and my mind is clear and ready to work. I did make another blog which at first started out to be a personal diary about my struggles dealing and coming to terms with the death of my son but as I added more posts, people started to read it and become very interested with it that I made it public. Basically what I started to do, is tell about my story, random rambling , how I'm coping today, in hopes of helping other grieving parents. So far many women and a few men have told me how my blog has helped them so much. I wanted to share it with all of you. You can read all about it here:http://alexanderswish.wordpress.com/I will do my best to manage both. Thanks for coming to my blog =). If there is anything you wish to read or are interested in, please feel free to let me know the topic!See More

Recently my husband and I have decided to work on our marriage and we discussed what needed to be changed and what things we need to take another look at. My husband brought up that he had been thinking about enlisting in the army. Apparently this is something he has always thought about doing and has been wanting to do. I have a close friend who has a husband in the military and he is currently away until January. She is also pregnant and this is a very hard time for her. I can't imagine fixing my marriage just for him to leave for months at a time or longer. At the same time, if we can save our marriage especially for the sake of our children, why should I keep him from something he really wants to do? Another issue with that is my daughter. She sees her father every other weekend, no over night stays. I have legal and physical custody of her. If my husband does enlist in the army and has to be stationed somewhere far and we go with him, wouldn't I have to leave my daughter behind or would she come with me? There's no way i'd be able to leave my daughter for months at a time or even weeks or days. If I was sure and very positive that my daughter would be with me 100% of the time if we were to move, then i'd be a little more comfortable with his choice. At the same time, I don't want to lose my husband even if we didn't get back together, I would be utterly devastated if I lost him. Am I being selfish? Is this something I should tell him to do?I can't possibly be the only one in this situation. I have read many blogs on army wives and how they divorce all the time or there is cheating. I would never cheat on my husband and I am sure he would never cheat on me but the time apart if I have to stay because I can't take my daughter would be so hard. Advice?See More

October 15th is a day to honor baby loss. My son passed away last year shortly after he was born at 27 weeks. I self delivered him in the hospital and while the placenta was coming out...the doctor informed me that he was going to die and there was nothing left for them to do. He weighed 1lb. 14oz. He was moving in my arms when he was born...and the next time I saw him an hour and half later, he was already gone. They baptized him half an hour after he was born.It was absolutely the worst day of my life. A permanent burn in my heart. I know I did not grieve right or really had the chance to because I had my little girl. I had to be strong for her but at the same time I was breaking horribly inside. I tried to go to group therapy with other mothers that had miscarried, infant loss...but no matter what, your loss will always seem worse to you because it happened to you. As October 15th gets closer, I get nervous and depressed. I already know how people are going to act...asking question on my mood. Many people have told me that talking about what happened and about my son will help me. The truth is, I have no idea where to even start. I am not even sure I know how to grieve. The day it all happened, it was such a traumatic ordeal that some parts I cannot remember when other parts, like the pain and blood, are so vivid. For weeks after, I had nightmares of the labor. It was pure hell. I felt the pain in my dream. It was like reliving it over and over again, night after night. I was afraid to go to sleep. Some people say my infant now is my son reborn. Others say he is in heaven watching over us. I want to believe he is at ease and happy. The doctors said he was not in pain and did not suffer. But how would they know?I would love to talk about it since I never had the chance to...not even with my husband. We still have yet to talk about it and its already been a year and 3 months. I can't even talk about it without breaking down. I am so sorry to every singly parent out there with empty arms. To every parent that has experienced a loss, especially a baby loss, I am truly sorry. The pain will never subside but in time I heard, it gets easier to deal with...hasn't yet for me. It's devastating to lose such a small precious child that you had so many hopes and dreams for. I knew I always wanted to be a mother when I was younger, and my greatest fear was losing a child...I never ever predicted that that would happen to me, and it did. In honor of my son, my husband and I are getting tattoos, 2. One of his hand print on our left shoulder/arm because we figured had we been able to hold him when he was a little older, that is where his hand would have gone, and around his hand would be the baby loss ribbon. The other tattoo (for me) will be a mother/baby symbol I found with a poem and his name and birth date. My husband already has a memorial tattoo for him. It is a medium/large sized cross on his back with his name in the center and on top says may angels lead you in. The most I can do is pray to God to let me dream about him. My Alexander. My angel. My baby. 6/22/2011.See More

In my earlier blogs, I stated that my husband and I have separated, for the second time. Unlike the first time, it's already been 7 weeks and we are still not together. The first time I took him back within 3 weeks...BIG MISTAKE. The way I saw it was, nothing will ever change if nothing ever changes, meaning things will stay the same if I do not do something drastic. My children deserve to have their parents together if they have what it takes to respect and love each other. I know they have gone through stress with the way my husband and I had treated each other and I felt absolutely awful and hope they are not damaged by that. Sometimes many relationships are just not meant to be but our children better off having their parents separate/divorce if it just can't work, or are they better off having their parents stay together when they are miserable? Recently, my husband and I have been communicating a lot more than before. He has told me that it has really hit him hard that he has to be without us. He told me that he took me for granted and he can't believe he hurt his family. Sometimes it takes someone to lose it all to really understand what they had was incredible. I have expressed to him that I do have conditions and we both have to put the same amount of effort into making this work. We are going to slowly start by working together to plan our son's baptism. I am completely standing my ground on this but I want it to be smooth so that our kids do not get confused. It is really important to me that they do not get scarred at such a young age. I will completely torn apart if my toddler starts getting depressed or if her behavior takes a turn for the worse. My parents feel that if I believe this can work out, then I should do what I feel is best, especially considering marriage counseling. The rest of my family, like my sisters, brother, cousins, etc., feel that I should just divorce him and move on with my life. Of course, they also feel that once I do get divorced...I should stay alone forever. =/ not liking that at all. I'm kind of hurt that they would try to force me into this and make my big life decisions for me. My parents divorced because these were hard between them, arguing all the time, controlling each other...but after a year, they got back together and honestly, they are the happiest now than they have ever been. So I know it can work sometimes.I love my children so much and if I can keep our family together then shouldn't I regardless of what the rest of my family thinks?Have any of you gone through this? I understand this is a very sensitive subject and personal. but have any of you ever gave it another chance and it worked?See More

I have been potty training my daughter for quite some time and now it seems to have gotten a lot harder. I tried that boot camp potty training thing, I have tried listening to other people like having her wear nothing or take her every 15 minutes to the potty. I have heard that potty training gets hard when something changes in their life, death, separation, serious things basically. She starts preschool soon after she turns three in December and really I am a bit worried she will not be ready by then. She really wants to go to school too and of course she has to be potty trained before she can. I have also tried BRIBING her. You know, every time she uses the potty, she gets a cookie. But then I though, well she's going to think food is a reward. Then I did a chart. At the end of the week, we count up her stars and see what prize the number equals to. That seemed to have worked for awhile but now once again she had a set back. I have also read many blogs that say she will go when she is ready. I have seen 5 year olds still not potty trained...sorry but I can't wait that long.I need some for sure fire ways to get this going and many parents out there will looove to read some advice as well. I am willing to try out everyones advice and then have a follow up blog on what worked and what didn't. So come on and bring it all on!See More